Home is where the bike is - Day 7

Today I was going to make the Painted Hills. In a way, that was the goal of the ride since I saw photos of them in someone's ride report a while ago.

I had not slept all that well as the motel was apparently on the truck route and I faced the street. But the breakfast was excellent and I got a chance to chat with a fellow KLR owner from California... though he and his wife were out in their cage, having just bought a camper.

I stopped by the office to check out and to see if the girl could check the forecast. The weather didn't look very promising.

Sure enough after riding about 30 minutes I stopped and got my rain gear on.



There were a couple of small climbs, even one 3000 foot 'summit' on Hwy 74 along the way. You see, it's clearing up over there!



But I'm of course headed over _there_




Off 'into the sh*t' I went. :)

Really, I missed most of the rain. It was windy again and the Killer was a bit of a handful given that there were no trees to provide any shelter from it, but the road was empty, the scenery was nice and I was having fun.
Once I turned south on Hwy 207 I saw some deer along the way, even as late as 10:30 am which was probably caused by the major shift in the weather. I took it easy through the valleys where they seemed to congregate.

The ride through Umatilla National Forest was beautiful.



I came around one corner and the entire road was full of turkeys! I got the bike slowed down and enjoyed the sight. No chance to get the camera out and nowhere safe to stop unfortunately.

It cleared up and I stopped a few times just to enjoy the silence.



There was only sporadic traffic and it gave me a chance to reflect and appreciate the ride ... and the fact that the sun was out and it was warming up a bit :)

For a while Hwy 207 South and Hwy 19 North are the same road. I was going to take a picture of the road signs because it made me laugh. Then I decided to just get a shot of what a difference water makes when you're in the desert...



I had spotted "Richmond - Ghost town" on the state map and decided to go explore to see if I could find it. I found it all right, but all the old buildings seemed to be on private property and have fences around it. It also started raining and I decided to move on.

View south towards Mitchell



I decided to stop in Mitchell to fill up. Cool little town. If I didn't want to get to the painted hills so bad, I'd probably have hung out for a bit. But the weather looked dicey and I decided to not 'waste' time...



And then, my first view of the painted hills



Stunning and I wasn't even in the park yet!

I got out the DSLR at this point. And man, was I glad I came.















For a while, I just sat down and looked. I was the only one at the viewpoint. It was great.

After a bit I decided to explore.



All too soon found a gate.



The rain picked up a bit, still pretty tough and the road was fun.






Back towards the park and another interpretive area. The sun came out again and I swapped camera gear and grabbed my ultra-wide lens.











Finally, it was time to leave.

I'd met an older couple from Prineville along the way and they spoke highly of it. I thought that it might make a good stop, though I'd originally wanted to get to Redmond.

Into the mountains once again and the weather turned truly nasty. Windy and strong rain. I put the full rain suit on, switched to the winter gloves and was dry.

I dropped down the other side of the pass and was glad to get out of the crap, into the sunshine and back to some more comfortable gear (the nylon raingear turns into a sauna after about a minute, especially in the sun).

This is where I was headed. Sun!



That's where I'd come from. Nasty Rain!



I got to Prineville, drove through and decide to spend a bit more and stay at the Best Western. Turned out that I got the last room and that I got the 'apartment' which had a full kitchen, fridge etc.

So I went next door to the store and bought supplies and made my own dinner. Figured that saved me some money and really I didn't mind just plopping down in front of the idiot box as they had a lazy-boy recliner! Drank a bunch of Cascade Ale and ate some pizza and then after a while got back to my book.

What a great day!

Preview of day 8:

-Cold! Wind!
-Finding the smallest roads I can.
-Looking for Old Blewett Pass road.

Home is where the bike is - Day 6

The morning doesn't look all that great. Last night's storm was pretty severe and while it's not all that wet yet, you could see it coming.

Some light sprinkles, but not too much yet.

We pack up, check a couple of weather reports online and head out. The plan was to take Old ID7 back and then drop into Lewiston to see if Wally World has the ATV pads that work on the KLR.

By the time we start the climb up Old ID7 it's wet. My tires are sticking well though and soon I'm riding on my own.

After a bit I stop to see where Tony got to and to take a few photos.



Turns out that Tony feels his front end slipping a bit and is taking the smart approach and going easy.

No big deal, he sets off down the road and I snap a few shots.



As I'm putting my gear back on, an empty logging truck passes. Hmmm, not going to be as easy to pass with all the spray.

Eventually I catch Tony and we ride over to Lewiston and find the Walmart. I got the last seat pad! :D

After a quick installation, we head back out of town to find the spiral highway. In the wet. Still what an amazing road. If only it were 10x as long :)





After a quick navigation error (mine) we ride back down the spiral highway and grab some lunch at a DQ. Tony is going to take 12 West, I'm going to head South on Hwy 3.

And I'm on my own.

It's always an odd feeling for me when I leave a riding buddy and start the solo part of my trip. I'm not sure why, but it is both easier and harder all at the same time. A safety net is removed but simultaneously, everything is up to me now. No checking, no discussing, just ride to where I want, when I want.

The road soon becomes absolutely amazing. What can I say, some of the best twisties I've ever ridden and the scenery is great.



Curve after curve after curve.



At one point there was a sign announcing 25 mph corners for 13 miles. I did take a couple stops along the way to just sit and think and soak it all in.



On the way into Enterprise I spotted these fellows...



I filled up and having forgotten that in Oregon they need to help you swipe your credit card, I was pretty much done by the time the gas station attendant came over. *shrug*

My goal was to ride to La Grande and kick back for the night. But frankly, I was less than impressed and decided to just keep riding. A quick stop and a check of the map and I rode towards Pendelton. I don't even know why, I just thought it'd be a decent jump-off point the next day.

The ride on I-84 was a bit painful and when I saw the sign for Deadman's Pass I decided to hop off and take a look around. Mostly it was the name though.

At the rest stop I read up on some of the history of the area and then decided to explore the little road that branched off, expecting it to end at some type of viewpoint.

I soon found myself paralleling the interstate and quite happy to do so.



I decided to just follow this little road and see where it took me.



The corners were banked nicely and it was a pleasure to ride here, versus fighting the blasts from the big rigs on the super-slab.



And guess what? I ended up in Pendelton anyway. I took a ride through town and then returned to the little friendly looking motel at the edge of town.

Glad I did too. The room was nice and clean, the girl at reception helped me with where to get some supplies and got me a room where I could park the bike right outside.

I was starting to run out of band aids and went to grab some, along with food, at Safeway. The blister I'd gotten when the bikes weren't running right and I accidentally touched the exhaust was pretty nasty and I'd used up most of my band aids over the last couple of days. Long days in gloves didn't help.



I killed the idiot box after checking the weather (it was looking pretty wet for tomorrow) and finally got a chance to start reading one of the books I'd brought along.

Another great day on the road.

Preview of day 7:

-Wet and windy
-The painted hills
-Watch out you turkey!

Home is where the bike is - Day 5

Tony and I had kicked around the idea of spending an extra night in Oroville after looking at the map and doing some quick calculations. The initial plan I had was to do a loop through Idaho and into East Oregon, but Tony's plans had changed and his return date moved up to mid week.

We saw a gravel loop on the map that would lead us to Lolo pass on the Montana side.

Lolo pass simply as a commute back to the hotel? That sounded promising. We chatted with the owner of the hotel some more over breakfast and he provided what details he could. The road was supposed to be in good shape, important as Tony was on more of a road tire (Pirelli Scorpion MT90's for those of you who care ;) ).

We set off after breakfast and quickly pulling the seat off my KLR to see what shape the carb vent tube was in. No problems to be found in the morning, but then it wasn't 107 F ... yet.
The road started pretty easy and besides a bull on the open range who didn't seem to be a fan of red motorcycles, pretty uneventful.

The plan was simple:

Ride North-East to Headquarters, take NF 251 -> 250 which forked a couple of times and ended up in Superior, MT.

So we get into Headquarters



(note, no gas anywhere along this route of course, but we'd filled the KLR's in the morning).

And there is a fork in the road. The only road. And it says: 247 left, 246 right.
Back to the AAA map (GPS is for sissies ;) ). Hmm nope, definitely 251 on the map. We explored quickly on 246 but it didn't look like the description we'd had. So we went into the forestry building and chatted with a couple of nice ladies at the front desk. Looked like 247 was the way to go. *shrug* OK. Off we went.

The pavement continued for a while and Tony still thought he was riding a sportbike



But soon enough the gravel started and the views continued to be great, though a bit hazy.



Hey, 250! And Superior, MT only 71 miles of gravel to go :D



We were on the path. I guess there are points where you can't completely rely on a AAA map after all ;)

Cool suspension bridge (see Tony's 'KLR's grazing' shot above)



The road (trail?) got smaller and more fun. I was able to get into a good rhythm and make great time. Loads of stretches where 50+ was a good pace, followed by tighter sections to keep you wide awake. But less of the deep gravel compared to earlier and much better traction.

Tony was hanging back to keep the 'dust eating' to a minimum. I could have stopped every 2 minutes to take more photos, beautiful country. But we still had a bunch of riding ahead of us. So I generally stopped every 15 minutes to 1/2 hour to made sure we were good and he was still behind me.

Finally I got hungry (it was around noon) and I stopped in some shade for a powerbar (we'd stocked up the night before) and a bunch more water. We generally drank 3+ liters on the hot days.



After a few minutes Tony arrived. Looking dusty but happy :D He's got some photos of his helmet and bike I'm sure.

We didn't stop for long and reached a stretch of paved road and along with it a change of scenery. There were some mountains ahead and the alpine flowers gave away the climbing we'd already done.




Tony said "Hey this is turning into a great day of riding!"



The views continued and there were no warning signs at any corners. Or signs of any sort anywhere. Good stuff, kept us on our toes.



Finally we could see the summit and stopped just short as there we wanted to break out the DSLR's for some shots. My watch read about 1800 meters, or about 5500+ feet.






I broke out the 10 mm lens for some ultra-wide angle shots



Soon enough we took off and were back on gravel. Tony took the lead for a while and I took my turn hanging back. D-U-S-T-Y! And loose gravel. And more traffic including logging trucks *cough*

We made Superior, MT and gassed up. I had a couple of salami & cheese sticks. Today we were smarter than yesterday and parked the bikes in the shade. The temperature had climbed again and was over 100 F at this point.

We had no great desire to head into Missoula, so after a short hop on I-90 we pulled off in Alberton to find the gravel cutoff to get to Hwy 12 (i.e. Lolo Pass).

Finally found a road that crossed the highway and turned into gravel. I though, ah, this should be it! How many gravel roads could there be in Montana. Right? Exactly!

I didn't want my bike to cut out again so I kept it at 110 km/h on I-90, indicated on the KLR, so really about 100 km/h. Sure enough, we were going faster on the gravel than we had on the interstate. We had a good laugh about it later!

This was some fast stuff



We stopped once as the hydration was working well. You know what I mean ;)



Tony pulled up after I'd finish my pit stop and we motored on. The road got a bit more twisty at this point.

All too soon:



Hwy 12 West. The gravel ended :(

Off we went.

We stopped to take the mandatory pictures:



But seriously, this was a very uninteresting ride after what we'd done in the morning. Maybe if I'd been on my Ninja and had room to run the 40 and 45 mph corners at 1XX mph, this road would be great. But the 'winding road' was too gently winding to be much fun on a dual sport.

Still we managed to work the tires to the edge. Note that it really was a bit dusty earlier ;)


We only stopped once for a bit of a rest, another powerbar and some photos.



Talked to a guy on a KLR who had the "Wal-Mart" seat pad. I sat on his bike and decided I was going to stop off in Lewiston the next day to pick one up. My ass and back were plenty sore from the stock KLR seat.

Besides almost zipping past a trooper at 20 mph over the speed limit, the ride back to the motel was fairly unexciting.

For a "short day" we ended up being on the road for 10 hours and did over 400 miles, with over 150 on gravel. Good thing we're taking it easy :D

It was 'steak night' at the motel and we partook.



Combined with a number of these



it made for a great end to a great day.

The wind had picked up and rain and thundershowers were forecast for the next day. Tony was going to turn back towards Vancouver at some point and we'd looked at the map and worked out a few different possible routes.

Great trip so far!

Day 6 preview:

-Spiral? Yup
-Rain and solo riding.


Thanks for coming along on the ride :)